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Game of Thrones books, are they well written? MOD NOTE POST 22

nyarlothothep

I'm on book two now and while I find it mildly interesting I cant say anything beyond that, there just doesn't seem to be any passion in Martin's writing and also some of the prose isn't great. Eg, so and so character "picked up their sword and went to fight some more" (this is the scene where Arya's party are waylaid by the Lannister soldiers). I know that the first book is meant to be glacial in pace, so was expecting a change but I find the way he writes is almost borne out of apathy.

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[Deleted User]

Sleepy wrote: »

Ah now, comparing him to Dan Brown is a bit harsh. The man can barely string a sentence together.

Ah Dan is sound leave it out.

Boom_Bap

Describing the style of writing, how it is generally simple and flows together.
As opposed to comparing Martin to David Foster Wallace, which are worlds apart.

nyarlothothep

Sleepy wrote: »

TBH, I found Tolkien's prose so painful I gave up about 200 pages into Lord of the Rings.

Martin's writing clearly needs editing. In places, his prose is exceptionally good, and in others he descends into over-use of expressions like "nipples on a breastplate", "nuncle", "boiled leather" etc.; needless over-description of food, heraldry, scene setting etc. The first three books suffer far less from this, both from having better structure and, I'd argue, less pressure to get them published.

Within the fantasy genre, I've yet to find a writer to match the likes of the great prose writers of our time. A Wheel of Time, while still massively enjoyable, suffers from writing far poorer than George RR Martin's. I remember Anne Rice's novels as being beautifully written but tbh, I was in my teens reading them so my memory of them may suffer heavily from rose-tint glasses. And, while he sometimes has fantasy elements to his writing, I don't think Douglas Coupland (who would be my personal favourite author in terms of the quality of his prose) really qualifies as a "fantasy writer".

I'm still on book 2 so dont know how excessive he gets with the detail but I thought the descriptions of the clothes and food were a standout feature, almost reminiscent of American Psycho.

Another thing, I think his references to Daenerys as Dany really jars, the latter moniker sounds like an Americanisation of a name that's meant to be classical, also in book 1 he refers to her "butt" which is another Americanism totally out of place in a medieval fantasy setting.

calex71

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I'm still on book 2 so dont know how excessive he gets with the detail but I thought the descriptions of the clothes and food were a standout feature, almost reminiscent of American Psycho.

Another thing, I think his references to Daenerys as Dany really jars, the latter moniker sounds like an Americanisation of a name that's meant to be classical, also in book 1 he refers to her "butt" which is another Americanism totally out of place in a medieval fantasy setting.

To be fair to American Psycho that detail added to the book and was a running theme throughout it, down to the suits, "hard bodies" the porn he rented etc etc

GRRM isn't BEE to be fair he doesn't go OCD with the descriptions. Or talk about the discography of Genesis

I even see some Dan Brown references further up, there is a lot of unwarranted snobbery towards him imo, but I will go on the record saying this when I read through the Song Of Ice And Fire books I had just come from reading the lost symbol by DB , under the dome by Stephan King and his Dark Tower saga, and Blood Meridian by C Mc and on more than one occasion I had a thought as to how sub par the writing was by GRRM compared to them, not always but there were a few occasions where I thought as a reader "this is B grade writing" I actually struggle to think of another time I felt this way about an author or book.

Edit: Just to clarify not the story over all just how it was delivered letter and verse as opposed to other things I have read over the years.

Gbear

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I'm still on book 2 so dont know how excessive he gets with the detail but I thought the descriptions of the clothes and food were a standout feature, almost reminiscent of American Psycho.

Another thing, I think his references to Daenerys as Dany really jars, the latter moniker sounds like an Americanisation of a name that's meant to be classical, also in book 1 he refers to her "butt" which is another Americanism totally out of place in a medieval fantasy setting.

"It was all he could do to avoid retching" is another one.

There's a few more. They're immersion-breaking. It seems like he doesn't know they're americanisms. Not obvious unless you're not from America to be fair.

TimeToShine

I would agree that his writing ability is not revolutionary by any means but the world he has created is truly amazing in terms of depth and detail and it would take quite poor writing to screw it up. His writing is good, his material is fantastic.

Shout Dust

I think overall they're well written, but he can overindulge on the descriptions of fairly pointless stuff like food, especially in AFFC. You could guarantee that if he started describing a meal you could skip 2 paragraphs and miss nothing. He also overused certain phrases that seems to have just discovered, particularly in the last two books, 'nuncle' in particular got on my nerves.

Regarding the op, its a fair question, but the op has in the past admitted to deliberately trolling different forums just to get a reaction or to see how people responds (experiments I think he described them as, ever the faux-intellectual), which is why I think he probably stuck in the bit about the first book being glacial in pace, don't think I've hear it described as that before? AFFC is slow going alright, although some characters are good, but if you are genuinely reading the books, the second half of Storm of Swords goes at almost breakneck speed.

A Neurotic

Gbear wrote: »

"It was all he could do to avoid retching" is another one.

There's a few more. They're immersion-breaking. It seems like he doesn't know they're americanisms. Not obvious unless you're not from America to be fair.

The weirdest and most stark example of this immersion-breaking language has to be in ADWD when Asha describes her lover as having a "swimmer's body". I mean what the f*ck.

Gbear

A Neurotic wrote: »

The weirdest and most stark example of this immersion-breaking language has to be in ADWD when Asha describes her lover as having a "swimmer's body". I mean what the f*ck.

To be fair, I'm not sure if swimming was a common ability to have for your average joe in medieval culture.

So people who swam a lot might well have looked Phelpsian and worthy of comment.

iamanengine

I watched the tv series up to date then decided to pick up the books. I think it's a great testament to the series as a whole that I am absolutely engrossed in the books even though I know exactly what is going to happen. I still can't put the thing down.

gokogo

I've read all so far, waiting for The Winds of Winter is killing me!! :-P

OneOfThem Stumbled

Tbh I found Game of Thrones (i.e. the first book) hard going.

Skipped to Storm of Swords and found the prose style had much improved imo. Suppose it's natural to think that Martin would improve over time ...

But why does he have so many POVs be from non-major characters? Okay, checking in occasionally with Bran, for instance, is fine, but you might have just a couple of chapters of Davos (and therefore Stannis) or Dany in an entire book! Crazy :eek:

And why none of the five kings is ever a POV is beyond me... :pac:

December2012

OneOfThem Stumbled wrote: »

Tbh I found Game of Thrones (i.e. the first book) hard going.

Skipped to Storm of Swords and found the prose style had much improved imo. Suppose it's natural to think that Martin would improve over time ...

But why does he have so many POVs be from non-major characters? Okay, checking in occasionally with Bran, for instance, is fine, but you might have just a couple of chapters of Davos (and therefore Stannis) or Dany in an entire book! Crazy :eek:

And why none of the five kings is ever a POV is beyond me... :pac:

But Dany is....

GerB40

Different strokes for different folks. If you like his writing style stay reading. If you don't like his style don't read his books. He's by no means up there with Joyce or Dickens style wise but the story he's telling is so engrossing the he can be forgiven for going on about food for a page or two.

Washington Irving

December2012 wrote: »

But Dany is....

Dany isn't one of the five kings...

iamanengine

That doesn't necessarily make them a main character in the overall scheme of things Jon Snow or Dany etc are far more important to the story.

TimeToShine

I'm pretty sure it was intentional for none of the POVs to be one of the five kings...the "game" part of the series is about the path to the throne moreso than those who think they are already on it.

As it stands 4 of the 5 kings are dead and I'm pretty sure that Stannis will also die come last book but I stand to be corrected.

December2012

Also no pov chapter in the books from any Tyrell yet, which I think is interesting as a style - we only know what's happening by observing them.

Boom_Bap

December2012 wrote: »

Also no pov chapter in the books from any Tyrell yet, which I think is interesting as a style - we only know what's happening by observing them.

Did Margaery Tyrell not get a few at the time she came to Kings Landing?

Mickeroo

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Did Margaery Tyrell not get a few at the time she came to Kings Landing?

No not at all, she's hardly in the books. We only see her when Sansa, Cersei or whoever else interact with her.

Boom_Bap

Mickeroo wrote: »

No not at all, she's hardly in the books. We only see her when Sansa, Cersei or whoever else interact with her.

Yeah, and early in the books when she was interacting with her brother and the other Baratheon brother.
But I'm nearly sure she had one in Kings Landing here she was talking to her mother about Sansa and Geoffry. I could be going as mad as the mad king though.

Mickeroo

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Yeah, and early in the books when she was interacting with her brother and the other Baratheon brother.
But I'm nearly sure she had one in Kings Landing here she was talking to her mother about Sansa and Geoffry. I could be going as mad as the mad king though.

Yeah i think her first appearance is when Catelyn meets Renly in Clash of Kings.

I think the chapter you're thinknig of in Kings Landing is when Oleanna and Margaery grill Sansa about Joffrey and she admits he's a monster.

TimeToShine

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Yeah, and early in the books when she was interacting with her brother and the other Baratheon brother.
But I'm nearly sure she had one in Kings Landing here she was talking to her mother about Sansa and Geoffry. I could be going as mad as the mad king though.

That's from Sansa's POV as far as I can remember, there are no Tyrell POVs.

I think GRRM said there will be no new POVs in the next two books aside from the prologues and epilogues, which leads me to believe Dorne and the Iron Islands will prove to be a lot more relevant than the Tyrells.